


The Secret to Perfect Cookies

by 77sparks



Category: Heroes (TV) RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2019-10-28 00:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17777288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/77sparks/pseuds/77sparks
Summary: Things and/or people Zach has fallen in love with in the past year: Knitting, the UPS man, a pair of socks, a Roomba named George, the concept of schadenfreude, Milo Ventimiglia.





	The Secret to Perfect Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my Puffity Puff for the speedy and awesome beta.
> 
> Note from diana, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Pretty Lights](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Pretty_lights), which closed for financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know)  
>  this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Pretty Lights collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/prettylights/profile).

i. 

Chris loves Zach (in an entirely platonic way, except for that one time which everyone has agreed not to talk about). He really does. He's a great friend. They get each other's sense of humor. Chris is pretty sure he couldn't have gotten through the whole Star Trek insanity without him. 

Chris would do anything for Zach. 

Well, probably not murder. And he's not really sure he'd be all that comfortable with covering up murder either. Actually, Chris really isn't a fan of violence in any form. However, metaphorically speaking, he'd be willing to do anything for Zach. 

Except, and Chris is saying this with love, sometimes Zach is a bit difficult to handle. Or in less polite words: he's a high-maintenance petty bitch.

It's just that he gets so focused. Like that awful 60 hour period where Zach had been absolutely convinced that the path to enlightenment was through knitting. There is still a knitting needle stuck to the ceiling of Chris's living room from when Chris finally snapped, and forcibly took the needles away from him. 

Or the fact that Zach seems to fall in love about ten times a week. Generally he falls in love with people, but Zach doesn't just limit himself to living sentient beings. He once fell in love with what he claimed were the perfect pair of socks that made you feel like you were walking on clouds. He even managed to fall in love with abstract concepts, declaring schadenfreude the most perfect state of being. (The conversation had gone like this: “Zach, you do realize that's just a fancy way of saying that you enjoy being a vindictive fuck.” “Chris, I am deeply saddened by the lack of poetry in your soul"). It gets kind of exhausting to keep up with. 

The point being: Chris loves Zach (platonically), he would do anything for him (metaphorically), but for Chris's own sanity, that does in no way imply that Chris feels any need to listen to him.   
ii. 

“Are you even listening to me?” Zach demands. They've been sitting in the corner of Starbucks for the past hour. Chris had tuned Zach out after five minutes. 

“Yes, dear,” Chris replies, not looking up from the magazine he is absently flipping through. 

Zach throws a packet of sugar at him. “Pine, this is important.” 

Chris had once watched Zach put 20 packets of sugar in his coffee. He never does it all at once. He starts with one, and then after he takes a few sips, he adds another. Chris is convinced that by the time Zach gets half way through the cup, it contains more sugar then coffee. Chris thinks that this explains a lot about Zach. 

“Doubtful,” Chris says. He's reading an article about how to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie. It's fascinating. “Did you know that the trick to making the perfect chocolate chip cookie is getting the proper ratio of brown and white sugar?” 

“Fuck you.” 

“I am trying to tell you how to make the perfect cookie,” Chris says. 

“I am baring my soul to you and you are sitting here mocking my pain,” Zach complains. 

“You are trying to get me to help you get laid and I am trying to share with you the joy of chocolate chip cookies. Which of us is the better person in this scenario?” Chris says. 

Zach glares. Chris decides it's because Zach knows that Chris is right. 

“I don't get why this is so difficult for you?” Chris says. “You know this guy, right? Just go up to him and say: I think you're hot. Let's go fuck in the bathroom.” 

“You have not been listening to a word I've said for the past hour, have you?” Zach demands.

“Not really,” Chris says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the magazine. “Cookies.” 

Zach pouts. 

Chris would laugh because the sight of a grown man pouting is pretty ridiculous, but one of the things he quickly learned about Zach was that a sulking Zach was a vindictive Zach, and Zach becomes something of a demented genius when enacting revenge on those who he thinks have wronged him. 

Chris sighs. “Fine.” 

He's not giving in because he was pouted at, because that would be pathetic. He's nobly sacrificing himself to spare the world from Zach's vindictive madness. 

The pout remains. “You don't even know what you're agreeing to.” 

“Listen,” Chris says. “I can either do whatever inane thing you so desperately need me to do so that you can get laid, or I can make you the world's most perfect chocolate chip cookies.” 

Zach frowns. “Do you even know how to turn on your oven?” 

“That is not the point,” Chris says. And besides he's sure he could figure it out if he tried. He's a smart guy and ovens can't be that hard. 

Zach takes a sip of his coffee. “As fascinating and entertaining as it would be to see whatever monstrosity you come up with in an attempt to bake cookies, I think I am going to go with the getting laid option. If only to spare us all from dying in the inevitable cookie-related oven explosion.” 

Chris sighs, looks down at the pictures of the cookies one last time, and then sadly pushes the magazine away. “I hope you get herpes.” 

iii. 

Zach has apparently decided that he is in love with Milo Ventimiglia. This confuses Chris a lot. 

“You worked with the guy! If he's so amazing, why didn't you do something about it when you saw each other every day?” 

“The timing wasn't right.” Chris translates this to mean that they were both too busy fucking other people. 

“Why don't you just call him up and say: 'Hey Milo, we both fucked everyone else on set, don't you think it's time we fucked each other?'” 

“Don't be crude, Chris,” Zach scolds. 

Chris notices that Zach does not dispute the implication that he had fucked everyone else on set. 

Chris can never decide whether he's in awe of what apparently happened on the Heroes set or terrified of the psychological damage that must have occurred. 

iv. 

Chris has just made a tactical error. 

It's his own fault for not paying attention. He's running very late. Not because he's busy, but because he's trying to find every excuse possible to avoid meeting Zach to implement Operation: Milo or whatever the hell Zach is calling it. So he had just picked up the phone to hear Zach yelling at him for being late, and at some point while Chris was trying to lock his front door while juggling his phone and searching for the car keys, he had asked Zach: “Why Milo?” 

And now Chris is getting the answer. In great detail. It's his own fault. Really. 

The answer seems to mostly have to do with Milo's intensity, which Chris interprets as Zach's way of saying that he thinks that Milo is a kinky fuck. 

Chris says this and then gets a ten minute lecture on why Chris's soul is an empty place where poetry goes to die. And then Zach goes on to explain that Milo clearly has an old soul. Chris is really tempted to say that must be Zach's way of saying that Milo is very experienced in bed, but Chris refrains because he's busy crossing three lanes of traffic so he can get to his exit. 

“I hope the two of you are very happy together,” Chris says as he pulls into a parking spot, “and that you name your first child after me.” 

v. 

There is some sort of Heroes set reunion going on at the bar, and Chris almost walks straight through and out the back door. He knows way too much about these people to be comfortable sitting around a bar drinking beer with them while trying to help his best friend fuck one of them. 

There is supposed to be an elaborate plan of wooing by proxy. Apparently Zach cannot do the wooing himself because Milo will not take him seriously. Chris is the exact opposite of shocked by this revelation. 

The only thing Chris likes about the plan is the use of the word 'woo'. It's an awesome word and should be used more. Chris is saying 'Woo' over and over again to himself to try and make himself feel better about this entire situation. It's not working. 

Zach motions Chris over to a table in a corner. Chris sighs and makes his way over there. 

“You didn't say all your little Heroes friends would be here too,” Chris complains. 

Zach stares at him. “I'm pretty sure it's the first thing listed on the plan. Why else would Milo and I be in the same place?” 

“Oh,” Chris replies. “Right.” 

“You haven't heard a word I've said about the plan, have you?” Zach demands. 

Chris thinks for a moment and then has a brilliant idea. “Not really.” 

Zach looks like he's about to hit his head repeatedly against the table.   
“I was probably thinking about cookies,” Chris says. 

“You worry me,” Zach says after glaring at Chris for a moment. “Greatly.” 

“I can fix this,” Chris says. 

“Doubtful.” Zach says under his breath, but definitely loud enough for Chris to hear. 

Chris rolls his eyes and leaves Zach's table in search in Milo. 

He finds him at the bar doing shots of Jameson. 

“Hi,” Chris says. 

Milo raises an eyebrow at him and does another shot. 

Huh. He actually is kind of intense. And can apparently hold his liquor. Maybe this isn't like the time that Zach fell in love with the UPS delivery man because he had hidden depths (i.e. a great ass). 

“So I was supposed to help with this plan,” Chris begins. “It's a wooing plan. It's a great plan and wooing is a great word, but I'm really not interested in indulging Zach's insanity, well, ever actually, but especially not tonight.” 

“Zach?” Milo asks, eyes widening at the mention of Zach's name. 

This is going to be so easy. 

“The thing is,” Chris says. “Zach is in love with you.” 

Milo's eyes widen even further. Chris pats his hand and pushes one of the shots sitting on the bar towards him. 

“Don't get too flattered or freaked out. Last week he was in love with his Roomba which he had named George. The point is that he's love with you or in love with the idea of fucking you and has decided that in order for this happen there needs to be elaborate and complicated wooing by proxy.” 

“Why?” Milo begins to ask. 

Chris shakes his head emphatically. “Never ask why with Zach. My current theory is that he desperately wishes his life was a Shakespeare comedy.” 

Milo looks thoughtful at this. 

“Look, you seem like a nice guy and it is very possible that you deserve elaborate wooing of some sort, but I am begging you to please just go over to Zach and drag him out of here, so that the two  
of you can go back to his place and have the insanely kinky sex that he is convinced that you love and I can go home and bake cookies.” 

Milo opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times, and finally says, “Is that a euphemism I'm not understanding?” 

Chris frowns. He has no clue what Milo is talking about. “What?” 

Milo is looking at him like he is measuring Chris for a straight jacket. Chris is a little bit offended. He is most definitely the only sane one in this situation. 

“Never mind,” Milo says quietly and then does another shot. 

“So will you?” Chris asks. “Please?” 

Milo smiles slightly. It's a smile with purpose, and with a hint of evil. Chris is once again a little bit impressed with him. 

“Since you ask so nicely, how can I say no?” Milo says. 

“Thank fucking god,” Chris says and steals one of Milo's shots in celebration. He watches Milo walk over to Zach's table and whisper something in his ear. Zach's grin gets bigger and bigger the longer Milo whispers, and then Milo yanks Zach up from his seat and the two of them quickly stumble out of the bar. 

Chris smiles. It's possible those two crazy kids just might work things out. 

vi. 

Chris's phone buzzes at 4:00 a.m with a text from Zach. It says: “Milo and I both think you need to get help with your cookie problem.” 

Chris is not amuses, but he is somewhat thankful for the lack of graphic detail about whatever happened between Zach and Milo. 

And then the phone buzzes again and a message appears that pictures are downloading. Chris throws his phone against the wall and goes back to sleep, hoping desperately to dream about cookies.


End file.
